


always a riddle in the world she said

by faithsedge



Category: The Wayhaven Chronicles (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: -p vague on that part but its There, F/M, Political Intrigue, also some vague rory backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 22:08:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29907792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithsedge/pseuds/faithsedge
Summary: The town gathers on occasion. Tonight it’s a party to gather support, and political praise for the Mayor, and his reelection campaign. Agent Parker will be there, on the arm of the Mayor with a bright and forced smile that she wears with practiced ease. Rory’s already spoken with her, keeping all of her pens achingly close to her chest, but Rebecca knows her daughter. She’s taught her everything she knows.That said, she knows Rory has placed bets and bargained deals to get the Mayor in office for another term, even before the polls have opened.Rory was always a fixer; playing politics and sleeping with one eye open. Like mother, like daughter.
Relationships: Adam du Mortain/Original Female Character(s), Detective/Adam du Mortain, Female Detective/Adam du Mortain
Kudos: 1





	always a riddle in the world she said

The town of Wayhaven, Massachusetts is quiet. Eerily so. 

Members of the gated community do not usually drum up any commotion, so not to disturb the relative peace in the town. Detective Rory Parker falls into line with the rest of the non-thinkers. The conforming society. She dresses in black turtlenecks and tan peacoats, mauve staining her lips. Bright auburn hair done just so every morning with a curl above her forehead, curtaining down and tucked behind her right ear. _Always_ her right ear. 

When questions are asked she gives non-answers. She deflects. 

But the balance falls on a tightly held string, between the pinch of two fingers. The depths: the secrets, and the blackmailing, and lies threaten to breach the surface, pushed down only by quiet whispers and scattered rumors. 

Adam disrupts this balance. 

Though, truthfully, the entire team of vampire agents as she once put it “crashes about the town” without so much care to the delicate state of it. Nat, once entertained the idea. She was careful to not push, perhaps understanding the need for a mask, with intent of malice or not. 

And it was never with malice for her. Not for Nat. 

_Always for Rory._

She keeps lies tucked underneath her arm at all times, and dirt on every character she’s ever met (--and this is how she distances herself. If the people she cares about are simply characters with hidden motives then--) Perhaps, she’s got a little more on Adam than the rest. Perhaps it’s because she finds him dangerous. Perhaps it's because he intrigues her, and perhaps she desires to know more. 

And if she desires to know more, it is less for selfish reasons and more for protective reasons. A girl like her needs to protect herself, right?

_Another lie she tells herself._

The town gathers on occasion. Tonight it’s a party to gather support, and political praise for the Mayor, and his reelection campaign. Agent Parker will be there, on the arm of the Mayor with a bright and forced smile that she wears with practiced ease. Rory’s already spoken with her, keeping all of her pens achingly close to her chest, but Rebecca knows her daughter. She’s taught her everything she knows. 

That said, she knows Rory has placed bets and bargained deals to get the Mayor in office for another term, even before the polls have opened. 

Rory was always a fixer; playing politics and sleeping with one eye open. _Like mother, like daughter._

_“I’ve asked Agent du Mortain to join you this evening,” Rebecca says, adorning her ears with long and dangling diamond earrings._

_Rory raises an eyebrow, and writes off the sudden flutter in her chest as pre-party nerves. “This doesn’t sound like something he would enjoy.”_

_Rebecca’s gaze drops to the floor, a faint smirk curling on her face. “And you know what he enjoys, do you?”_

_“I--no. Forget it,” Rory splutters._

_The senior agent pretends not to notice the reddened flush on her daughter's cheeks._

In this town you play your cards right, and you learn that the hard way. 

It’s all that is running through Rory’s mind as she steps up the brick staircase, delicate hand resting on a white rail. She raises her head to meet the tall marble columns of the Town Hall. A poisonously sweet smile rests on her face, as she wiggles her fingers at the superintendent of the Wayhaven Board of Education.

Then, she turns and is greeted instantly with the only man ever invasively on her mind. 

He looks handsome, almost devilishly so. His hair is slicked back, navy blue suit fitting tight, with his hands in his pockets. Her gaze trails down his arms, priceless watch dangling on his wrist. He fits right in. 

And it makes Rory falter. 

For many reasons she supposes. Perhaps she is uneasy with his blended-in figure, not wanting the weight of political intrigue on his shoulders, or maybe it is the sudden ice-cold freeze unraveling in her veins. Either way, her breath catches in her throat. 

She stammers, kicking her heel on the step, “Adam.”

He almost rolls his eyes at the sound of his name, but he doesn’t ignore the way it sounds as it rolls off of her tongue. He _definitely_ ignores the way he wishes he could taste it. And how it could, and it would, taste of the sweetest honey, like sitting underneath the magnolia tree, dressed in white and care-free. That is how he imagines it would taste… _would (--if i could) taste._

 _She_ wears a black dress, lacy in the front with an open back, a tight bodice, and slim fitting as it reaches her feet. There’s a slit reaching up as high as her thigh on the side. Adam’s eyes trail up her dress, hand curled tightly in a fist beside him. 

“Detective.” _Rory._

_Rory, Rory… Aurora._

Rory instinctively holds out her arm for Adam to take it, brightening her face once again with a smile that could attract bees (it always does). Adam glances down at her bare arm, and loops it in his reluctantly, tensing at the sudden touch. Rory raises her chin, and speaks through her teeth, “Smile, all eyes on you Agent.”

“Insufferable,” he manages, forcing a smile that is painful to look at. “What is the point of this.”

Rory leads Adam to the entrance of the Town Hall, speaking lowly, “My mother already has her claws in the Mayor’s back, but we need to keep him in office. It is… imperative to the way this town is run.”

Adam nods. “To keep the supernatural a secret, you mean.”

“Yes."

“What do you gain from it, besides keeping your job?”

Rory’s smile curls dangerously into a smirk, a cunning glint in her hazel eyes. “ _My_ , you keep quite a careful eye on me.”

She glances at him with a full turn of her head, and he catches her gaze. Dark and murky, and he wonders what lingers beneath, what hides in that head of hers? He doesn’t want to know, perhaps it would be better not to know… 

It does not stop him from swimming. 

The autumn breeze catches the edges of her hair, sweeping strands across her cheek and sticking to her lip. Adam’s brow furrows, and in a moment of forgetting himself he brushes a delicate thumb across her face, pulling red strands out of the way. Rory feels her smile slip, breath halting, burning touch echoing when his thumb pulls away. The moment feels like forever when her eyes linger on his, before he shakes his head and turns. 

“The cold is biting, let’s head inside.” He doesn’t budge any further than that, and Rory chooses not to prod. 

She purses her lips, and glides into the Town Hall with a heavy step. 

The Mayor greets her instantly, sleazy face and menacing smile. “Ah, Detective Parker!” He brushes his finger over his lip and wonders aloud, “I haven’t seen your wonderful mother yet--”

Rory chuckles, “Well that _is_ a shame. I’m sure, as she’s helped organize the evening, she will be here shortly.” She flashes him an opened mouth smile, teeth glimmering, and she flourishes her hand with a wave as she steps past him. 

“One would think,” he grumbles watching as the detective moves past him.

The inside is decorated with black and gold ribbons and balloons stuffed in the corners. There’s an open bar, and Rory thinks to herself, _one drink… maybe two._ She notices several attendees, members of the city council, and other prominent Wayhaven figures, but with Adam on her arm, the entire room blurs in her vision, and all those people she’d once caught in her trap are forgotten. 

_Rory._ The lights get caught in her eyes, she lets them blind her. 

_Rory._ She hears her name but it falls silent on her ears.

 _Rory._ A tug on her arm and she snaps out of her daze, snapping her eyes to the sound of her name. “You’re blocking the entrance, detective.” His voice is detached, a little irritated maybe, but she doesn’t respond, simply pulls the vampire onwards. 

There’s music playing somewhere on the speakers, and Rory sees her mother walk in with her head held high, always with the femme-fatale facade, black high heels and dark lipstick. She gives Rory a knowing look, and saunters off beside the mayor and Rory bites her lip without thinking. Worry coiling in her stomach. 

Politics--

In Wayhaven it is dangerous. 

Rory has since lost count; the amount of coverups she’s been involved in. 

But her interest has always been in the town.

 _Another lie she tells herself._

She ignores the whispers of her own true self, ignores how they echo _self-preservation._

She’s always been so selfish. Taking control, and playing the right cards, with a smirk and a bluff. And ever since her mother’s return to the town (after twenty years of playing a disappearing act) supernatural in tow, she’s had to work harder--

Not harder. Smarter.

She’s always had to climb her way to the top with bleeding fingernails. 

The memories fry nerves, and she clenches her jaw. Buries her anger down, pulls Adam aside and listens as the mayor writes off his speech, champagne glass in hand, sparing glances at his audience, and when he finishes Rory turns to Adam. “Would you like to dance?”

He furrows his brows, but takes her hand. “I didn’t think you were one for dancing?”

“I’m not.” She hurries after herself. “...Not _usually_.”

She moves his hand to her waist and he doesn’t protest, keeping his touch light and feathery. Hesitant, but not regrettable. His eyes follow the length of her arm and all the way to her eyes, holding her stark amber-green gaze. “What is different this time?”

She swallows down her pride, ignores the chiming sound in her ears, and the laughter, and the warm lights pinned on her skin. She finds herself unable to lie. 

_Adam disrupts this balance._

“I think I’ve bit off more than I can chew.” Subconsciously he pulls her closer, feeling the uneasy waves emanating from her sorrowful blue glow. 

And she thinks, as her hand grips Adam’s shoulder, that now is no time to feel guilt. And now, or ever, is time to feel so helpless--so spiraling out of control. 

But he doesn’t question her words, he doesn’t ask, he just feels. Closes his eyes and breathes in her spicy perfume. Cinnamon. He takes the moment in full, deliberate and slow, comforting fingers on trembling skin. 

_You change everything_. She thinks, circling around the room, eyes locked onto his own. A green thrill, a green chill down her spine, and she lets herself make a mistake, she lets herself slip.

And he--

He does the same. 

_You are everything_. He thinks, forehead dipping, breath stilled in his lungs. Gaze intense, and it heats his cheeks. And the evening slows. Time dips, and all he can think of is her eyelashes curling against her eyelid, eyes wide, and pleading. 

_Pleading_ , she is pleading, and so is he. 

“Then spit it out,” he whispers against her ear, tender and forgiving. It isn’t a command, it isn’t an order. And he doesn’t press her to follow it. 

“And what if it all spills out?” Her eyes are swimming now, the same murky waters he’s grown so fond of, he glances, from them to her lips, and her neck, and her hands. 

His head dips, and she lets him with bated breath, find an open spot of her skin. Above her chest, and below her neck, the sensitive of her collarbone. He glances up at her, anticipating his ‘okay.’ She doesn’t back away, doesn’t tear herself away from showing her bare skin, and her vulnerability. She forgets she’s in public. She forgets all eyes are on her. 

She forgets herself, and wants only one gaze on her. 

_Adam disrupts this balance_. 

Her heart stammers in her chest, unable to will herself calm. She knows he can feel it. She knows he can hear it. She knows he knows what he’s doing. 

And he slips. 

(He peeks behind the curtains. Opens her closet; exposes her skeletons.)

A lingering kiss on her soft skin. Lips dragging upwards, until he pulls away completely. 

Her eyes flutter, and she presses them shut. She pulls him closer, and he holds his head high. 

“ _Let it spill_.”

**Author's Note:**

> hi!! ty for reading!! @nathanielseawell on tumblr!!


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